To all of you who have followed me here… Although I will continue to post here on occasion, I have moved over to blogger, simply because everything ties together with my activities on google. Some of you may not continue to follow and I understand. The reasons for this switch is in part due to the social media outlines, and lets face it, the reason we all do this in hopes that we get noticed or we hope to make an impact with our blogs.. Yes my blog has a lot of follows, but as far as people actually reading, well I am finding that this is not the case. However, Photography being my main reason for having a blog, I have found that as far as impact and people actually reading , blogger has been the ticket for me.. If those of you who read this are still interested in hearing my take on things, and want to know what I am working on, you can follow me on Google Plus at Michael Sargent or see my Blog at ,http://forksalongtheway.blogspot.com/ .

Thanks for all the support, and I hope to see many of you on the new site.

Last post, I mentioned that I was going to do a little talking about a project in the works. Well a slight change of plans… Where to begin. Lets just summarize. With an opportunity on the table, and considering ethics and morals, one could be considered a terrible person if they forego what they believe in and trade those beliefs for a quick out. The problem however lies in the reality that some people cannot keep the tasks at hand in focus, nor can they finish what they start. Then if they do finish something, the failure of following up is huge disappointment. Look, I will say that from my perspective, having some success is a great feeling, but when you work so hard and the others involved in the projects don’t seem to share your drive, it’s disappointing. Saying that you don’t do cold calls, or expect people to contact you instead of taking some initiative to aspire to a goal is setting things up for failure. Knowing this now, is kind of a good thing, because I can use the time to do something more productive instead of wasting the time with stupid ideas, that produce little results. For proof, I offer this 3.7 million reached vs. 355 views and out of the 355, about 85 percent were generated by my activity. I know My opening is kind of “what the hell is he talking about”, but trust me the point I am making, to achieve a goal you must step outside of your comfort zone sometimes. If you are unwilling, than you will never know, what you could have done. You cant expect everyone else to step outside a comfort zone, if you are not willing to do the same. With my rant being over and related to my photo for this week. Here is the similarities. Bonds. Think about what a bond is. and please don’t confuse it with bound. People often mistake these two words and from this perspective a bond is a connection. An understanding of trust and mutual caring. Bonds are rare and even more rare when we are talking about Human and Beast. I feel very privileged to have captured and even more privileged to be able to share this with you, the reader.

My Photo for the week.

The Bond

Shot with the Canon 7d camera and the Tamron 18 to 270 lens, I employed the aperture of f-8 and an iso of 400. Partial metering was used and a single focal point focused on the kiss itself provided a very good depth of field once the shutter set at 1/500 was pressed.

Post processing. I used Adobe Lightroom to put a warm glow in the white balance, and proceeded to adjust the exposure and contrast and reduce a few high lights caused by the overhead sun. I then used a developed MSP script, to give the image an HDR appearance. Thus creating my final composition. I know not everyone will like this because of the HDR appearance, but from my view, this is how HDR should look.

As stated in the last post these were taken while on a video shoot for an entirely different project. My guess is when this video project is done, if it ever gets done and I get to view it. The results of this will be much like the same as many of the past projects. Yeah it will be seen, but it will be seen without me promoting it, and it will be another disappointment in a long list of many. The Question is why?

The image here has already been seen by thousands, on facebook, twitter, and google. The reviews and comments are inspiring and I want to give a big thanks and hugs to those who have left me with so much positive feedback…. I offer a fist bump, handshake, or a kind thank you for this and I will use this experience as future inspiration.

Ok yeah the title. Kind of a play on words, but the factors.. Partly sunny day, and on a beach so i figured what the heck.

I followed up yesterday doing some photos for friend and her very pregnant daughter, and while on this shoot I took notice of the contrast in light on the beach. When I finished with my friends, I took a closer look on the beach and before you know it, I was flat on a cold stone riddled sandy beach snapping some shots.

SO far my favorite:

Stoned on a beach

Once again in use, was my trusty and loved 7d. I used the Tamron 18-270 set an F-8 with the shutter at 1/500th of a sec. I also used ISO 400 and a partial metering mode to create the raw image. Using Lightroom for my edit, I sharpened it slightly and brought up the vibrance. I thought of cropping the photo to remove part of pier and water but decided to just leave it as it sort of offset the beach and gives the photo some depth and contrast.

Having some spare time on my hands today, and needing a little fresh air, not to mention a bit of exercise, I decided to go on a short walk. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter the conditions, there is always something to photograph. Today is no exception to this, as I take one of natures little burdens and attempt to make it look artistic in my composition. Lets face it, we all have experienced the trails of Bird Ox and some of us, present company included have gotten these things stuck in our hair. As kids we would seek out these tormenters and throw them at the hair or clothes of friends and young lasses that may have been the object of our affections. Well at least that is what we did when we were growing up. By todays standards this would be perceived as bullying, but as we gave we also received. This first shot was taken with a 7d and an aperture of 3.5 @ iso 400 with a shutter speed of 1/90th of a second.

Bird Ox

I used Light room to crop the image and added a light vignette to place the focus on the center pod .

This next image I went for a softer tone and used a slightly smaller aperture ( F-8) and employed a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second.

shot at f-8

While out on this shoot, I also ran across a gentleman who still practices in the lost art of trapping. As he gave me a lesson in the finer points of trapping, I watched as he worked his magic in and around the huts that the subject of his query had built. He explained to me that you have to find the runs they use to travel between their homes and where they feed. In addition you can generally spot a muskrat hole by the discovery of a mudline. Once you find the hole you can check to see if it is active by determining the hardness around the opening. Often times a rat will rub against the opening to keep its borders hard and from breaking away from the constant submersion in water.

A few shots for your enjoyment.

Pre trap scouting.

Checking out a hut

As I made my way out of the area, I was able to see the subject of his search. This shifty little rat made my capture quite difficult as he dove under water and made his escape from my lens.I did however capture this image as he swam away from me and my invading lens.

Two weeks ago, and after some conversation, am idea ran through my mind. How about we do some shots of Harley’s? Better yet why don’t we HDR this American Classic, and even better still, how about we contact our local Harley dealerships and lets present this idea to them. Well Bingo, after some social media magic, Jim and I were contacted by old friends, and we brought this project to life.

My first shot. The American Classic in HDR black and white.

HDR B&W

I shot 9 photos to compose this image and you can see that on the light side of the stack we captured the highlights that were offered by the setting sun, as well as the soft reflections and contrasting points of focus offered by the angle of light reflection. On the darker side of exposure stacks, the deep rich shadows offer a contrast in black that made the bike pop out of the photo. Despite the apparent sky shadow that is include with many HDR shots, and after careful examination of the photo itself I choose to leave it as it was because I simply loved the classic feel of the overall composition. Shot with a 7d and the Tamron 10-22mm ultra wide-angle lens. F-8 at iso 400 and the shutter started at 1/500th of a second.

My next shot was done in color and having taken the majority of shots during the golden hour of light, I can only say one thing about this time of day. INCREDIBLE. Knowing that this is the best time for taking pictures, I took full advantage of every second and was able to create this HDR color photo.

Color HDR shot during the Golden Hour of Light

My only complaint with this shot is the highlight located on the fairing of the bike. Although it is interesting and a part of HDR shooting, many years of photography have taught me that once a spot is overexposed or washed out, you can’t simply use a slider in lightroom to reduce a highlight. It however adds something to the picture, but right now I cant figure out just what that is.

Anyway the great part of doing these pics, was the connection that was made by using that social media magic. In the future Jim and I will be doing some shots for one of our local Harley Dealerships that saw these and said WOW! Thus once again THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!!

With several shots still to be edited, I wanted to give a quick preview of our current project, and get your thoughts on these images. I also would like to thank my partner, Mr. Jim for meeting me on location and doing what he does best. Jim has also captured some amazing images, and you can see those on the MSP Facebook page. I also want to give a huge shout out, and my thanks to a dear old friend, Charlene. Charlene thank you for making this happen. I enjoyed this shoot and I am excited to see how the other shots still to be edited turn out. One last thank you to Charlene’s fiance Brian. Brian, your bike is a piece of artwork. I am so appreciative that you allowed me to take this shots, and took some time to share with me your experiences as a Harley owner. My respect,admiration and appreciation are with you.

After a conversation and completion of a project, with my buddy John From Torquil Studio, he mentioned to me that he had the coolest little bee buzzing around his butterfly bush. His words described this as a bee that looks like a hummingbird. I immediately knew what he was referring too and I went on a mission. I asked John if it would be possible to come down after work one evening and see if we could capture any of these on camera? He responded with an enthusiastic yes and we were off to the races.

As John and I exchanged pleasantries and proceeded to enjoy some pops, we spotted a visitor to his bush and went in for the shot. surprisingly They had no fear of us and allowed us to get close for the photos you will see in this post.

Some information on the Hemaris thysbe can be found here on this provided link, but we have discovered that these are actually moths. Now it is debatable to the origin of this species, but I for one enjoyed their antics as well as ours. Capturing these images with a 7d and a 50 mm lens. I used an iso of 800 and a shutter speed of 1/4000 to 1/8000 of a second, and did some light editing in Lightroom.